


you feel the thought of love again

by benshaws



Series: such recovery [7]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 13:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benshaws/pseuds/benshaws
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On nights like these they’d usually take the party outside. Muschietta would usually set up a fire at the bottom end of her garden, so their friends could nestle themselves among the flowers and around the flame and laugh and joke in the dark. Except the weather recently had been atrocious, a dying summer giving into the beginnings of autumn, and the day before the rain had been almost continuous, leaving her garden sopping wet and smelling of damp grass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you feel the thought of love again

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing particularly... Happens in this fic, but I'm posting it anyway because there hasn't been a c/R fic in the tag for a while! Really, really unbeta'd and written before I went to sleep so, coherency may not be that great.

On nights like these they’d usually take the party outside. Muschietta would usually set up a fire at the bottom end of her garden, so their friends could nestle themselves among the flowers and around the flame and laugh and joke in the dark. Except the weather recently had been atrocious, a dying summer giving into the beginnings of autumn, and the day before the rain had been almost continuous, leaving her garden sopping wet and smelling of damp grass.

Tonight is better, only with the lightest drizzle, except the ground is much too wet still to sit on. Yet, Grantaire is sat on her damp porch step, the toe of his trainer causing ripples in a near by puddle, and while the party goes on inside the walls, casting an orange glow through the patio windows, Grantaire is alone.

At least until the kitchen door is opened up behind him, making him jump at the sudden noise, a startling difference from the quiet sound of the fountain in her pond or the distant murmur of his friends getting drunk and dancing, arguing over the next song. Combeferre steps out of the bright light, and the step’s concrete slab makes a noise of protest as he moves outside, offering Grantaire a smile and settling down beside him on the step. Unlike Grantaire, he’s barefoot, with only socks as coverage, and Grantaire laughs a little at him as he searches for a dry spot to rest his feet with the tips of his toes.

“I think you need shoes,” Grantaire tells him, drily, to which Combeferre tips him a look over a glasses.

“That might have been a good idea,” Combeferre responds in a way which sounds both like Combeferre agrees with his advice, and that he also doesn’t particularly give a shit.

Combeferre’s fingers slide into the back of his hair and Grantaire sighs at the touch, melting in against his side and pressing his face into his shoulder. It fills him with a quick jolt of danger, after all, at any minute one of their friends could walk through the door and find them there.

Apart from Jehan, Eponine and Enjolras, no one else knows about their relationship, and Grantaire gets a panicked thrill at the thought of one of the others finding them like this, with Combeferre’s fingers in his hair and his head turned to press a gentle kiss to Grantaire’s cheek. He wonders if they would think Grantaire has started drinking again, at such an unusual image as the two of them together. A few months ago Grantaire wouldn’t have been able to imagine it himself, or the next words that come out of Combeferre’s mouth.

“Enjolras said I might find you here,” He says, removing his hand from Grantaire’s hair and instead sliding it down his back. “Is everything okay?”

Enjolras had found him in the kitchen just before he’d retreated outside and the undertone of Combeferre’s voice suggests that Enjolras is worried, and Grantaire can’t particularly blame him. When Enjolras had found him Grantaire had been leant over the kitchen counter, staring at a collection of booze Courfeyrac had brought over.

He never blamed or tried to stop his friends drinking habits. Tonight was Bossuet’s birthday, and who could criticise his friends for wanting to celebrate? Nevertheless, almost all of them were a lot more sensitive drinking around Grantaire when it was just an intimate group of friends. Combeferre was especially careful, but then he’d never been a heavy drinker anyway. Once or twice Combeferre had come home obviously having drunk something, but all Grantaire had asked was that he brushed his teeth before he kissed him.

Grantaire hadn’t been lusting for a drink, however, which is what Enjolras must have thought, as he’d been startled out of his thoughts by a hand on his arm and a frown that while looking stern, Grantaire knew was only concerned. Instead, he’d been thinking about what this party would be like a year ago. Then he would have been drunk at that point, staring lustfully at Enjolras and probably trying to start a fight with the same man. Someone would have likely had to take him home.

Now, he was drinking tap water and Enjolras had been asking if everything was alright.

Still, it was no wonder Enjolras had jumped to the wrong conclusions.

Slowly, with a gentleness, Grantaire pulls away from Combeferre’s shoulder to nod at him and lean forward, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together. “Yeah,” He replies, earnestly, even if it’s not true in a sense. Grantaire does feel okay, even if he feels sad somehow, even if he couldn’t get into the party or be as happy as he wants to be.

“We can go,” Combeferre informs him, and although Grantaire’s staring out into the garden he can bet that Combeferre’s looking at him, warm and steady. “If you want.”

“In a bit,” Grantaire replies, because the truth of it is Grantaire’s emotionally tired, and there’s only so much he can take of putting on a smile. Some days are different. Some days he is the man who he wants to be - spinning tales off his tongue and laughing with his friends, but then there are days like today where it’s hard. Instead of charisma and jokes, the pieces don’t fit quite right. He looks at the people he loves and he’s not sure who they are, or who he is in relation to them, even as Joly’s throwing an arm around his shoulders and laughing in his ear.

When he looks back at Combeferre he’s suddenly filled with the warmth of how much he loves him - his acceptance, his patience, his stupid glasses flecked with specks of rain, the plastic cup rested at his feet filled with Coke rather than beer. There’s a little light from the window in the kitchen door and it catches on his hair. Grantaire grins at him, even if his heart is heavy in his chest with a weight he can’t explain, and Combeferre smiles back in the darkened light, making his eyes crinkle at the edges.

Grantaire wants to see Combeferre grow old, whether they’re together or not, just to see his laughter lines.

Abruptly he stands up, holding out a hand for Combeferre, that he takes and pulls himself up on, until they’re standing face to face. Grantaire curls a hand around his side and kisses him, and it’s soft and slow and a warmth spreads through him, feeling like how marshmallow looks when it’s stretched out. When they break apart they don’t linger, they don’t press their foreheads together, noses brushing, or feel the air on each other’s lips, but Combeferre does stop him before he moves toward the door. He grabs a hold of his hand and presses a kiss to the back of it, in a silent recognition that he knows Grantaire isn’t as okay as he’s making out to be.

Grantaire wants to say, “I’ll be okay by tomorrow,” but he doesn’t know how to, so he just lets go of Combeferre’s hand to grab the door handle instead and says, “I’d really fucking like some pancakes right now.”

Combeferre’s laughter follows him.

“Pancakes?”

**Author's Note:**

> As always you can find me on [Tumblr](http://benshaws.tumblr.com/)


End file.
